CAIRO -- Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-CA, after meeting with Egyptian Defense Minister Abel Fatah Al-Sisi, Sunday called on the Obama administration to lift its restrictions on selling spare parts to Egypt’s military. The embattled country's voters this past week passed a referendum enabling a new democratic structure. Al-Sisi’s military government offered the new governing plan as a replacement for a radical Islamic dictatorship.

"The Egyptian army," said Rohrabacher, who is leading a congressional delegation, "is the most potent force standing between radical Islam and its objective to terrorize whole populations throughout the Middle East into submission."

When the army sided with the popular uprising against the radical, theocratic regime and arrested its leader, President Mohamed Morsi, President Obama initiated restrictions on the United States' relationship with Gen. Al-Asisi's alternative to Morsi’s radical Islamic regime. Over the course of last week the Arab nation held an election to confirm or reject the military's forceful moves. Voters accepted the new government’s plans.

"The alternative might not be perfect," said Rohrabacher, "but it's clear the Egyptian people are rejecting the radical Islam of the former republic."

The congressman traveled to the region to speak with Egypt's government leaders as well as as to hear the opinions of a broad sampling of the country's people.

"The U.S. government has been doing exactly the wrong thing in Egypt," said Rohrabacher. "This is a pivotal moment in Middle Eastern history, and we should encourage forces that oppose radical Islam rather than restrict their ability to protect democracy and freedom."